Changes to your Base Reserve policy

Amazon Pay Managing Your Amazon Pay Account
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Hello guys,

so what are you thinking about this? I have been selling on Amazon for years and my Seller Account has been grandfathered with the original payments schedule, which allows immediate disbursements after shipment confirmation.

As of today, Amazon enrolled me into the terrible “Payments after delivery schedule”, which means that any funds will be available for disbursement no earlier than 7 days after the order’s latest Estimated Delivery Date.

Since I am based in Slovakia and sell low value items which I fulfill without tracking, I have 21 working days shipping time + 30 days Handling Time on most of my orders.

This means that starting today, I will have to wait 60 working days before my funds become available for a disbursement. Therefore my next payout will be in October 2023!

I have seen many sellers outraged and submitting complaints to various press outlets, do you think there is a realistic chance anything will be done about it?

In the USA, thankfully this change is not being rolled out. It’s so strange, why would they decided to do this in Europe and not in the US?

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Hello,

Your seller account now has a Base Reserve policy called “Delivery Date Based Reserve.” This means that your funds will now be available for disbursement according to the delivery date of a shipment, plus seven days.

For example, if you ship an item on January 1, and the delivery date is January 4, the funds will be available for disbursement from January 12.

Previously, your funds were available for disbursement based on the ship date of a shipment. Now, funds will be made available for disbursement based on a shipment’s delivery date. When you use an integrated shipping provider, we’ll use the actual delivery date of the shipment. In the absence of valid tracking data, we’ll use the latest estimated delivery date.

A Base Reserve policy is one of the factors that determines your account level reserve. The account level reserve is the amount of money that we reserve to ensure that you have enough funds to fulfil any financial obligations, including refunds, claims, or chargebacks from buyers.

Since your account now has a “Delivery Date Based Reserve,” you may experience a one-time cash flow disruption. This situation may continue until your account level reserve is built up and funds become available for disbursement according to the estimated or confirmed delivery date.

The policy change doesn’t affect your disbursement frequency, your ability to “Disburse now,” or the total amount of funds received. This policy change only defers the availability of your funds according to the delivery date of the shipment, plus seven days.

For more information, go to these help pages:

“Payments based on delivery date”
https://sellercentral-europe.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/G202124090

“When will I be paid?”
https://sellercentral-europe.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/14911

“Make your products eligible for deals”
https://sellercentral-europe.amazon.com/help/hub/reference/G202111490

“Valid Tracking Rate (VTR)”
https://sellercentral-europe.amazon.com/gp/help/G201817070

The Amazon Services Europe team

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There will be legal consequences, Amazon cannot just block sellers cash flow like this! We had our disbursement cancelled with a message saying we are suspended (which we aren’t).

Why limit the seller accounts of people who have been on the platform for 8+ years???

If this was aimed at new accounts, I would completely understand, but this is a scandal!

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A bit of a blow on the day the Bank of England raised the base rate for the 15th time on the bounce. They have also sneakily cancelled other disbursements for this month - so check what you are expecting.

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They don’t give a toss about the welfare of sellers. I agree that new sellers should be treated with some caution as there are a lot (1000s) of bad actors out there but the shackles should be gradually removed. I’ve been selling on Amazon for 13 years with no issues, why do I suddenly pose a risk to Amazon’s funds?

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Yep, it’s just an excuse to hold onto sellers funds for even longer. There is no need for this, they have everyone’s card on file for chargebacks the excuse of “allow you to run non-Prime deals in the European stores” is complete bull… , presumably the real reason is they earn interest on all the marketplace sellers money they are holding onto.
Selling on amazon used to feel like it was a two way street, as in Amazon used to at least partly value their marketplace sellers. Now it feels like they are the mega corp and you do as we say and we will do what we want and don’t complain, otherwise we will stop you selling here. Well I may well say bye bye Amazon thee way I am feeling,
I know it makes no difference to Amazon if I stop selling there but at least it makes me feel better.

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This is another way of withholding our funds for longer, so they can make even more money.

If your account gets suspended in that time you will never get the funds.

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I’m an American and I have been on this stupid system for the last four years. The thing is, I have been selling on Amazon since 2003. It’s 20 years! All I did was put my account on vacation for a couple months while I was out of the country and when I came back I had to go through all the steps as if I was a brand new seller.

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UK sellers have raised the issue with the press.

The Guardian article is a bit of a damp squib but the BBC article is a little more hard-hitting.

But as we all know, Amazon can and do what they like. Sellers are like the smelly stuff that sticks on the bottom of your shoe and even lower on their list of priorities.

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Thank you for sharing @AmazonUKForumRefugee, I would not mind if this was just a week or two week wait, however for me it means a three month wait.

I wonder why do the articles fail to mention the fact that many will have to wait for months :see_no_evil:

Literally any seller who is shipping internationally, such as me from Slovakia or even people who ship from Australia, Canada or USA into Europe will be waiting until late October or early November to be paid after this.

28 working days shipping + (up to) 30 days handling time (can be due to custom made goods etc) + 7 day after delivery wait time = 3 months

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I guess it was because none of those affected sellers contacted the media. I was certainly not aware of how long you and others will now have to wait and I am truly shocked and sympathise.

Edit - I have passed on your comments to the “ink” person that was mentioned in the BBC article (without mentioning you). He has just been contacted by the Daily Telegraph so he might pass them on.

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Great, thank you :slight_smile: But I don’t have high hopes that Amazon will do anything, they are not like Etsy.

To hold 100% of funds belonging to well established sellers is just madness.

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I don’t even have low hopes :slight_smile:

They won’t.

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One seller reached out to me today sharing that they received the below message:

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Thank you for reaching out to us in regard to the change in your reserve policy. The Delivery Date +7 (“DD+7”) policy means sales revenue is held for 7 days after delivery and has been the standard worldwide policy for sellers since 2016. This migration will standardise this policy for European sellers to ensure they have sufficient funds to cover any financial obligations, like product returns or customer claims.

We understand that the transition to this policy on 3 August has caused a one-time cash-flow issue for your business. To support you in preparing for the policy change, we have extended your policy transition until

31 January 2024. You will revert to your prior reserve policy in impacted stores within 48 hours.

The DD+7 changes which we have outlined in our previous communications will still come into effect on 31 January 2024.

For more information, see “Payments based on delivery date”

Merchant Credit Team

Amazon.co.uk

Amazon Payments UK Limited a private

I was already thinking that this is good news and Amazon backtracked from the policy, however these are just exceptions made on a case by case basis for those who aggressively complained.

I did not receive anything and neither did 99.99% of sellers.